Police must brief Ghanaians on kidnappings, terror threats

Ghana Police Service has been criticised for ‘leaving Ghanaians in the dark’, despite a spike in warnings of terror threats and kidnappings.
A retired Colonel, Festus Aboagye, expressed disappointment at the posture of the police that suggests “they don’t owe us any explanation as a society.”
He called the posture, “a culture of silence” in an interview on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Monday.
While the spate of kidnappings has increased in the southern part of the country, at its foremost northern border with Burkina Faso, the concern is terror threats.
The former soldier who is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations-Ghana wants to see the police briefing Ghanaians frequently on these emerging security fears.
For example, he would want the police to give information on the two armed Burkinabes arrested within a week. One of them was picked up in a church.
Police have not linked the arrests to escalating terrorism in Burkina Faso. But the retired Colonel explained, more information helps to coil panic and perceptions of insecurity.
There is more the police can do in the other emerging crime - kidnapping – he said.
In addition to the kidnapping of three Ghanaian girls, four foreigners have been kidnapped in three separate incidents within the last four months, a crime unusual in Ghana, police say.
Police have finger-pointed foreigners as behind the crime. But the conflict analyst indicated he is unimpressed with the police effort to sensitise Ghanaians.
No coordinated public information campaign in schools or within the media has been observed, Festus Aboagye worried.
The last police briefing on crime was on April 2, 2019 addressed by Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah.
She revealed a Nigerian gang had confessed to at least 11 armed robberies, a spree that included raping their victims before bolting with cash accumulating to more than two million cedis.
Her briefing on three kidnapped Takoradi girls would land her in trouble after her assurance that the ‘girls are safe’ turned out to be uninformed.
There has been no police briefing since.
Source:Myjoyonline.com

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